~ A little bit of this and that…

The Stork Has Landed

If you don’t want to read about me gloating about the benefits of Hypnobirthing….LOOK AWAY NOW!!!

4 days overdue and I woke up around 1am with mild surges (contractions) they continued for few hours and then went, I’d promised to take Miss Mouse to the library that day and decided that I needed to try and continue as normal as possible as going by my last labour, I had another 24 hours before things really kicked off. Tuesday carried on as normal and I spent the day indulging my 19 month old in her every desire as I knew it was quite possibly the last day that it would be just the 2 of us. Luckily her demands were easily met and she is easily amused with story books and jigsaw puzzles.

Surges reappeared around 4.30pm about 10 minutes apart, still very mild and they continued that evening and I managed to go to bed as normal. I awoke in the early hours of Wednesday morning, with stronger surges and knew today was going to be THE DAY! I tried to get back to sleep and not allow the excitement to take over as I knew it could all still be a long way off. I took a bath and listened to my Hypnobirthing script a couple of times. Hubby came downstairs and set up our living room as the birthing room. He had strict instructions about how I wanted everything and I came downstairs around 4am and got myself relatively comfy on the sofa.

Gary setting up the birthing pool, that never got used!

My mum and step dad arrived around 6.30am in time for Miss Mouse waking up and my step dad took her off to nursery for the day. My Doula Tracey of PureBirth came around 7am and said she would come back after the school run with a TENS machine. She came back and got the TENS machine on me, I felt immediate relief, up until this point I’d been meditating between surges, using visualisations I’d been practising and then using my breath to get through each of the surges. I had some Hypnobirthing music on my iphone and Jason Singh’s album along with a few other songs I’ve used before for relaxation and meditation. These really helped me to switch off to whatever was going on around me.

The midwife came to the house around 9am and examined me just before 10am, I was 5 cm already and really pleased as things were going really well and I felt like I was managing things really well. I carried on in the same way and was offered another internal examination 3 hours later, we asked her if she’d wait and do one in another hours time and see where we were at. She obliged and I was extremely disappointed when she told me that I was pretty much the same. Although disappointed, I wasn’t overly surprised as things had slowed down quite considerably. The midwife suggested she leave for 2 hours and return at 4pm, to let me try and get some rest and hopefully things would have progressed by the time she returned. Off she went and hubs and I went upstairs to try and rest, both of us totally knackered from the last few nights of very little sleep. I couldn’t get comfy, and the tears started flowing, I was deep down so disappointed in myself and the situation, things were heading in the same way as my previous birth and I was panicking I’d end up in hospital being induced and drugged up.

I concluded that I just wasn’t designed to give birth and what was the point of all the Hypnobirthing training I had done for the last few months. It hadn’t helped, things were slow and surges were getting stronger. Suddenly, I felt the urge to be back downstairs where I’d been in the morning and headed off, determined to get myself settled again. I got back on the sofa, tried to lay down and had a massive surge, at that point I thought I couldn’t take any more, then another one came quite quickly after it and my waters broke. I was so pleased, it meant things were moving again. Hubs started filling the pool up, in my head I wanted to be 8cm when I got in the pool and gas and air was going to be my treat for getting to that point. My mum was helping to get me changed out of my wet clothes and I suddenly announced that I was having a pooh! Tracey asked me if I had the urge to push. My mind couldn’t compute what was happening, yes I had the urge and I knew that you needed a pooh near the end but I didn’t understand as only half an hour earlier I was 5 cm and feeling like things would never get going.

I felt a heavy weight in my pelvis and with the next surge came her head, Tracey checked that the cord wasn’t around the neck and i reached down and touched my babies head! WOW! Tracey asked me to wait until the next surge and just to breathe down, with that my bubba came out, straight through Tracey’s hands and onto the towelled floor, she was picked up by hubs, who was still trying to get hold of the midwife and fill the pool! WOW! I was hanging off my mum, in complete shock at what had just happened! And so, on the 9th January 2013, Miss Agnes Pip Sawyer was born at home at 3pm, weighing 8lb 5oz.

I lay down on the sofa and Tracey passed me our daughter, ah she was breathtakingly beautiful and I just couldn’t believe what had happened. So all my hard work and practice had paid off, my baby was born, calmly, drug free and in the end very quickly! I’d happily do that again! Would I recommend Hypnobirthing? Absolutely, what a difference to my first birth, no trauma, just calm and being completely in control of what happened.